there's a boy here in town (says he'll love me forever)
by Bookdancer
Summary: Karasuno is on their way to Nationals when they get hit from behind by a truck much larger than their bus. The aftermath is devastating. Pt. 1 of "the darkness on the edge of town"
1. Tsukishima - The Crash

_WARNINGS: major character death, __angst, hurt/comfort, __graphic description of injury, vomiting, death of a minor, hurt yamaguchi, hurt hinata, hurt tsukishima_

_RELATIONSHIPS: tsukiyama, pre-kagehina, side daisuga, side asanoya, side kiyoko/yachi_

_TAGS: __established relationship, pov third person limited, every chapter is a different close pov, this is technically the prologue of a much larger fic i have planned in which yamaguchi is a yūrei, but you do NOT need to read this one to understand that one, likewise, this fic can be read as a stand alone fic, please heed the warnings, the first chapter is probably the darkest, yūrei yamaguchi, ghost yamaguchi_

_guys i'm so excited for this fic, like you don't even know. it's the first fic i'm posting on an actual schedule — and, because it's mostly finished (only minor edits necessary), i'll be able to actually keep to that schedule. the plan is to post every friday till the whole thing (five chapters total) is posted_

_also, this is absolutely a tsukiyama fic, but at the same time it's a karasuno fic. kageyama, yachi, and hinata have the middle chapters' pov so that they can show the subtlety of tsukishima and yamaguchi's relationship and what it means in the wake of the crash. this also means that sometimes, their focus isn't on tsukishima or yamaguchi. my aim was for that to make the tsukiyama moments stand out more, as well as to provide more insight into how the rest of the team is faring. hopefully it worked_

_the title comes from the band perry's "if i die young," and i do not own that or _haikyuu_. i also don't own the song that the series' title comes from, aka "the darkness on the edge of town" by bruce springsteen. this fic has been cross-posted to both tumblr (bookdancerfics) and ao3 (Bookdancer). i hope you all enjoy the fic!_

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there's a boy here in town (says he'll love me forever)

Chapter One: Tsukishima - The Crash

Kei slouches in his seat on the Karasuno team bus, doing his best to pretend like the scenery speeding by has him utterly enraptured. He thinks they may have passed five buildings in the last ten minutes. Most of it just seems to be fields and the occasional farm, or a little copse of trees if he's lucky. The clouds have turned out to be the most entertaining part of the countryside. So far he's found one that looked kind of like a volleyball net, one that was so close to being Tanaka's angry shitty boy face that he almost checked to make sure the older boy was still in the bus, and one that looked kind of, sort of, if he squinted, like Hinata when the shrimp made a block with his face.

Mostly, though, Kei keeps an eye on the front of the bus. He's in the second to last row of seats, only Hinata and Kageyama behind him, but Tadashi wanted to talk with Takeda and as a result hasn't joined Kei yet.

Kei spots another cloud and peers at it as best he can without moving, wondering if it looks as much like Ennoshita as he thinks it does. He imagines the cloud shaking its finger at the other second years and his lips twitch. As the bus slows, he catches sight of Tadashi standing.

Takeda says something, too quiet for Kei to hear, but Tadashi nods and leans back in his seat. Even before the bus comes to a complete halt, though, Tadashi begins making his way back to Kei, already smiling at him.

Kei only just starts to form a sarcastic thought about why anyone would put a stoplight in the middle of nowhere when the entire bus lurches. Not just a little, but wholly, violently, so much so that Kei's face makes contact with the seat in front of him and his vision fractures.

He ends up in the same position that he'd started in, his neck aching from the whiplash. Vaguely, he connects his jagged vision to broken glasses, and something warm drips from his left eyebrow into his eye, impairing his sight even more on that side. With his other eye he looks out the window and realizes that the bus has somehow ended up three-quarters of the way into the intersection. Something is loud in his ears, and he shakes his head only to regret it, the pounding in his head that he hadn't even noticed yet becoming a thunder.

Still, his ears clear, audio filtering back in, and the something loud becomes screaming. Someone is screaming. Someone else is sobbing, harsh and unsteady and terrified, a wail that crescendos until Kei has to cover his ears to make it go away.

It doesn't.

"Stop," he says, or thinks he does, he can't hear anything over the screaming and the crying, and the wail only gets louder.

He doesn't know if he wants to know who's crying. He doesn't think he wants to know who's screaming. He thinks he wants to know who's quiet even less than those.

The air is thick, but when Kei finally tears his gaze from the outside of the bus he can't find any smoke. His glasses aren't helping at all at this point, so he takes them off, dropping them to the floor where he thinks they finish shattering. Without thinking he wipes at his left eye, trying to clear it, and pain tears through his left hand and eyebrow. He hisses, dropping his hand, and turns to the rest of the bus instead.

Kinoshita is the first one he sees, the older boy's mouth open from where he sits across the aisle. He's always privately thought of Kinoshita as a calming presence, someone not as strict as Ennoshita but just as unlikely to get rowdy. Sometimes he thinks it's because Kinoshita is trying to make up for leaving the team the year before. Right now, he selfishly wishes Kinoshita would remember he was supposed to be calming, because the older boy won't stop screaming and Kei just wants him to be quiet.

Shouting erupts from the front of the bus, and part of Kei is thankful because it means there's more to this world than him, Kinoshita's screaming, and the sobbing wail. The rest of him can't even look to see who's yelling, because he's discovered why Kinoshita is screaming.

Hinata is the one who's sobbing. The smaller boy lays on the rough floor of the bus, his orange hair standing out even through Kei's blurry vision. Hinata's almost in the fetal position, except Kei can see that he's only holding one of his legs to his chest, and blood creeps from under the seat, from where his other leg must be. Kei doesn't think Hinata has ever looked so small. Bile rises in his throat, hot and acidic, but he swallows it.

"Kinoshita," he says, and catches the older boy's eye. "Be quiet. You're not hurt, are you? You need to help Hinata."

Kinoshita snaps his mouth shut, and Kei experiences blessed quiet for a split second before Hinata's crying fills it. He's no longer wailing, instead just sobbing, taking huge gulping breaths through his tears as if he's drowning on air. Still, the back of the bus is markedly more quiet than it had been just seconds before.

"He won't stop bleeding," someone says, and Kei looks over the back of his seat and connects the voice to Kageyama. He's both surprised that he managed to forget about the setter for a moment and relieved that at least someone seems to have kept their head throughout everything.

"I can't see his leg," Kei says in response.

Kageyama looks at him, his face frighteningly pale and his breathing coming fast and choppy. Kei thinks about how Hinata has stopped sobbing, and wonders if they've both gone into shock. Then he wonders if he's in shock, too. He wouldn't be surprised. His senses still feel off, everything filtering in and out as if filled with static.

"It's a compound fracture," Kageyama says, and Kei's chest clenches. Briefly, he wishes Akiteru were there, but he dismisses the thought. He needs to focus on what's here, not what's not.

"You need to stop the bleeding," Kei says. "Clean cloth would be best. Kinoshita can help you."

Kinoshita nods, his eyes wide and mouth silent.

"What about you?" Kageyama asks.

"I need to check on the rest of the bus," Kei says, _on Yamaguchi_ going unsaid. He knows they all heard it anyway. "And to see if anyone's called emergency services yet."

He stands, and his stomach churns, obviously not happy with his new plan, but he grits his teeth and keeps going. He climbs over Hinata to reach the middle of the bus, then turns back around.

"Let him hold your hand," he says. "He's going to hurt himself otherwise. Also he's probably in shock."

He barely catches Kageyama's nod before he turns his attention to the rest of the bus.

Asahi and Nishinoya are the closest to them, seated on a bench a couple rows up. He passes them with a cursory glance, his vision still blurry but enough to let him see that Noya caught the worst of it. His head seems bloody, like Kei's, red dripping from the side of his head onto his shoulder. Asahi holds something to Noya's head though, and they seem okay at least for the moment, although Noya still seems out of it and Asahi looks like he may have been crying at one point.

Tanaka should have been next, but he's not in his seat. Kei finds him with Narita in the next row, shirtless. Usually Kei would say something about that, something sarcastic, but Tanaka is tilting Narita's head forward and the cloth stemming what Kei guesses is a nosebleed is obviously Tanaka's missing shirt.

Ennoshita is also gone from his seat, although Kei kind of expected that. The second year is their future captain, after all, and is doubtlessly helping elsewhere. Kei mentally puts him on his uninjured list even though he hasn't seen him yet.

He finds their current captain and vice on the bench in front of Narita and Tanaka, Sawamura's head in Suga's lap. He can't make out anything else with his vision as blurred as it is, so he stops.

"Is he okay?" Kei asks, and Suga looks up. Kei thinks he may have been running his fingers through Sawamura's hair.

"He's in pain," Suga says. "We think he broke a couple ribs. Is everyone in the back okay? We couldn't really tell what was happening but Tanaka said it looked like you were all handling it."

"Hinata has a compound fracture," Kei says, because he's never had to beat around the bush with Suga before and he isn't about to start now. "I think Nishinoya has a head injury."

"You, too," Suga says, and Kei thinks he may look concerned.

"I'm fine." And he is. He has to be. "Where's Yamaguchi?"

"I think Kiyoko and Takeda-sensei are with him," Suga says.

Kei feels his face twist, his mouth morphing into something undoubtedly ugly. All of the other students have had to handle their injuries themselves. The idea of Tadashi taking up all of Takeda's time while Kinoshita screamed and Hinata wailed isn't one he wants to think about.

"He's probably fine, Tsukishima-kun," Suga says. "Takeda-sensei will take good care of him."

Kei forces himself to nod, stiff, and keeps going. A blur at the very front of the bus looks vaguely like Takeda's blue sweater vest, but he makes himself take his time. Tadashi is fine. Tadashi is always fine.

The front of the bus smells of puke. He can't locate the stink, doesn't know who gave in to the nausea Kei's been fighting, but Yachi is trembling in her seat and he has a pretty good idea. She's clutching something in her hand, probably a phone by its shape, while she stares at Kiyoko's back. The senior manager is standing, what looks like a large first aid kit open on the driver's seat in front of her. Takeda asks for gauze and she gives it to him.

Takeda asks for more gauze and she gives him that, too.

Kei pushes his way past Yachi and crowds into the bus's stairwell. Tadashi lays on his back, unconscious, his head slightly twisted to the side and a bloody pool surrounding both his head and his right arm. As Kei watches, Takeda presses more gauze to Tadashi's head. Then he presses even more to the mass of red fabric surrounding Tadashi's arm, something white in the middle of it all, and Kei realizes what he's looking at.

He turns so suddenly, attempting to escape from the bus, that he runs right into Ukai and loses control of his stomach then and there. He hadn't seen Hinata's leg, hadn't needed to, hadn't wanted to see if he could pick out the bone amongst all the blood. He wasn't so lucky with Tadashi's arm.

Ukai curses above him as Kei bends over his own knees and heaves, his breakfast meeting the concrete and Ukai's shoes. Someone's hand rubs Kei's back.

When he finally finds it in himself to stand again, Ukai silently hands him a tissue. Kei wipes his mouth with it just as quietly, shame pooling in his gut.

Ukai gestures at Kei's face as something, probably blood, drips down from his eyebrow.

"How's the head?" he asks.

"Yamaguchi," Kei manages instead, and Ukai pats his shoulder.

"I know it looks ugly, but we've already called emergency services. Yachi's on the phone with them now, and they should be here any moment. It's just taking them a bit because there's no hospitals near here."

Kei nods. "What happened?"

Ukai jerks his head back to the intersection, where Kei can just make out a large truck, one of the huge ones built for transport and nothing else. It's at least three times the size of their bus.

"Looks like the driver lost control or wasn't paying attention," Ukai says. "He's unconscious now; I left Ennoshita to keep an eye on him."

"He hit us," Kei says, and Ukai nods.

"Straight on, yeah. We were lucky he didn't hit us from the side, we could've rolled if that had happened."

Kei thinks of Hinata's sobs, how out of it Noya was, how Sawamura hadn't even addressed him. He thinks of Tadashi, splayed out at the front of the bus with Takeda packing gauze around a compound fracture. He doesn't think they were very lucky at all.

Instead of saying that, though, he turns and climbs back up into the bus, sitting as close to Tadashi's head as he dares. Tadashi's uninjured arm is right next to him, and he brushes a thumb over it.

Ukai makes his way past them all, puts a hand on Takeda's shoulder, takes a swathe of gauze from the kit, talks with Suga and Asahi and Tanaka, and then stops at the back of the bus. Hinata's cries are stifled from where he sits.

In the distance, sirens wail.

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_A/N: h__ey, all, just a quick note to say that as this fic plays out, i'll be bringing in Japanese yūrei, which can best be described as spirits kept from a peaceful afterlife. i've done my best to be respectful of Japanese customs/traditions/etc. as i do that, and i've done my own research, but if you notice that i mess up in any way, please let me know and i'll do my best to fix it_

_i also have a tumblr account, bookdancerfics, so please feel free to stop by. sometimes i post writing updates_

_and, finally, please let me know what you think of the fic so far!_

_p.s. in case you didn't read the opening note, updates will be every week on friday!_


	2. Kageyama - The Hospital

_sorry for the late update, guys! i had the chapter ready and everything yesterday but didn't have access to my laptop most of the day so i just decided to delay to today_

_also playlist songs for this chapter are adam lambert's cover of cher's "believe" and the band perry's "if i die young"_

_thanks for the comments and kudos, and i hope you all like the new chapter!_

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Chapter Two: Kageyama - The Hospital

Hinata won't stop bleeding.

There's a lot going on in the bus, but that's what Tobio focuses on. Kinoshita presses Hinata's Karasuno Volleyball sweatshirt to the open, bleeding wound on his leg, and Tobio clutches Hinata's hand in his. He feels faint and queasy, but his best friend won't stop bleeding so he just squeezes his hand harder.

Hinata is the palest Tobio's ever seen him, which he guesses is because of the blood loss, and also the quietest Tobio's ever heard him, which he guesses is because of the pain. Hinata finally stopped sobbing, and silent tears track down his cheeks instead. Tobio remembers what Tsukishima said about Hinata probably being in shock, but he never had any training for that and doesn't know what to do. He squeezes Hinata's hand harder anyway, because most movies say you shouldn't let a victim fall asleep, and if there's anything he can do it's make sure the smaller boy stays awake.

A shadow falls over him, and Tobio looks up to see Ukai standing behind him. He can't read their coach's face, but he doesn't think Ukai looks happy.

Ukai steps over Hinata, joining Kinoshita in the back row, and then kneels. He messes with Hinata's leg, and eventually Tobio realizes that he brought a roll of gauze back with him.

"Yachi's on the phone with emergency services," Ukai says finally, his voice gruff. "We think Yamaguchi is worst off, but Hinata should still get seen to fairly quickly. Both of them have compound fractures. Everyone else is—"

Tobio looks up at Ukai when he stops talking.

"Everyone else is—?" Tobio prompts.

Ukai clears his throat. "Everyone else is… well, not _fine_, but not as badly injured. If they're even injured."

Ukai peers closely at Tobio and Kinoshita, as if he's looking for something. "You two weren't hurt, right?"

Tobio shakes his head mutely.

"No," Kinoshita says, quiet. His hands are still pressing on Hinata's wound. Tobio can't make out a single clear bit of skin below Kinoshita's wrists. His hands and fingers are all red.

In that moment, the wail of sirens becomes clear, and in the very next moment there's a commotion at the front of the bus.

"Do something!" Tsukishima screams, and Tobio twists to look. His fellow first year stands at the front of the bus, half his face coated in a crimson mask, his glasses gone. Tobio has the sudden thought that if they sent the middle blocker up against other schools looking like that, then Karasuno would never lose.

Kiyoko puts a hand on Tsukishima's shoulder, and Tobio thinks Yachi may be sobbing, but he still doesn't understand what's happening until Takeda yells "I'm _trying_!"

Tobio has never heard Takeda yell before. He watches as Takeda's arms pump up and down, pushing on something, on what he doesn't know, and then Takeda bends down and Yamaguchi's blue shirt becomes visible.

Within seconds, Ukai has scrambled past Kinoshita, Hinata, and Tobio, and Tobio watches, stunned, as his coach races to the front of the bus. Tobio increases his grip on Hinata's wrist, and then turns around, gaze automatically falling to Hinata's chest.

Hinata takes one breath, then another, but Tobio can't relax when he knows what's happening behind him.

"Kag'yama," Hinata says, and Tobio instinctively squeezes his hand.

"Idiot," Tobio says, and Hinata smiles a little.

The sirens are so loud Tobio doesn't know why they haven't arrived yet.

"Wha's happ'ning?" Hinata slurs.

"It's nothing," Kinoshita says, interrupting Tobio. He holds Tobio's gaze, something like a warning in his eyes. "We'll tell you later."

"Oy," someone says from behind them, and Tobio mentally connects the voice to Noya. "Oy, what's happening? What's wrong with Yamaguchi?"

"Shush, Noya," Asahi says, but Hinata is already struggling again, tugging at Tobio's hand.

"Yama?" Hinata says. "Something's wrong with Yama?"

"Nothing's wrong with me," Tobio says, even though he knows that's not what Hinata means.

He's fully aware that he blocks any view Hinata could have hoped to have of the front of the bus. He thinks Tsukishima is still yelling, although he can't make out the words, and then Daichi's yelling, too, a wheeze to his breath that surely couldn't have been there before.

The sirens are deafening.

"No," Hinata insists, and tugs at Tobio's hand again. "_Yamaguchi_, Crappy Yama."

There's more yelling, and then Ukai is there again, a hand on Tobio's shoulder.

"—fracture in the leg," he's saying, and Tobio turns to see the familiar white hard hats of two paramedics.

The rest of the bus is emptying, Asahi supporting Noya, Suga with Daichi's arm around his shoulders, Tanaka and a bloody Narita and even Tsukishima, who Tobio can see pacing outside the bus. More paramedics surround Yamaguchi while Takeda stands off to the side, his hands as red as Kinoshita's.

"Kageyama," someone says. "Kageyama!"

Tobio turns to see Kinoshita standing, arm reaching toward him.

"We need to go," Kinoshita says. "They'll take care of Hinata."

Tobio looks down, and Hinata blinks back at him. He's stopped crying, his eyes glazed, and he shivers every couple seconds, but he's breathing.

"I'll be right outside," Tobio promises, and Hinata nods.

Reluctantly, Tobio peels his hand from Hinata's and then stands. With Kinoshita at his back, he makes his way to the front of the bus, past Yamaguchi, and then down the steps. No one is performing CPR anymore, but Tobio doesn't know if that's because Yamaguchi is breathing again or if—he doesn't want to think about it.

Tobio numbly allows Kinoshita to steer him, and they join the rest of the uninjured team standing by the side of the road. There's eight of them, Tobio and Kinoshita, Asahi and Suga, Tanaka and Ennoshita, Yachi and Kiyoko. As they watch, Daichi, Tsukishima, Noya, and Narita all get in an ambulance. Then Ukai steps out of the emergency exit at the back of the bus, followed by two paramedics and Hinata between them on a stretcher, and Tobio and the others crowd as close as they can to get a good look at Hinata.

"Is he okay?" Asahi asks, obviously anxious, and Hinata gives them a thumbs up even though he's lying down. Tobio snorts. Belatedly, he thinks maybe he should have at least tried to cover it, but it's too late. In response, Tanaka pulls Tobio to his side and ruffles a hand through his hair. For some reason the second year is shirtless.

Just as Hinata gets lifted into a second ambulance, another stretcher wheels past, although Tobio doesn't recognize the person on it.

"Who's that?" he asks.

"The truck driver," Ennoshita says, and when Tobio turns to look at him, the second year is still staring after the stranger. "He was unconscious, knocked himself out."

Yachi crowds in a little, peering at Ennoshita. "It was definitely his fault, though, right? The — the crash?"

"It was," Kiyoko says. When Tobio looks properly, he can see that Yachi is shaking, and Kiyoko puts her own arm around her. "He rear-ended us, it…"

Her voice dies down, and she stares at something behind Tobio. With everything else going on, he's not quite sure he wants to look, but he does anyway.

The paramedics carefully lower Yamaguchi and his stretcher from the bus to the ground. If Tobio didn't know better, he would think his fellow first year had worn a reddish purple shirt on the bus, but he knows the shirt had been blue not thirty minutes before. The blood coats Yamaguchi's whole right side, and a mass of gauze has been packed around his head. One of the strange oxygen masks Tobio has only ever seen on TV covers Yamaguchi's mouth, a puffy bag of what he thinks is air being held and squeezed intermittently by one of the paramedics.

Tobio has the sudden realization that he and Yachi were the only first years not injured in the crash.

Takeda stops in front of their group, his face pink. Whether the color is from exhaustion or stress, or _dis_tress, Tobio doesn't know.

"They're taking us all to different hospitals," Takeda says. His voice wavers. "There's not enough room in one hospital so Hinata's going to Nakatsuma, Yamaguchi's going to Kitaibaraki, and the others are all going to Isohara*. Sugawara-kun, please make sure that all of you get to one of those hospitals. You can split up if you want, that's fine, but at least two to a hospital, okay?"

They all nod, Suga murmuring a quiet assertion. Takeda hands a piece of paper and a handful of yen notes over to Suga, then races to catch up with Yamaguchi's ambulance before it leaves without him. Tobio can't help but notice that their teacher, usually a stickler for proper social mannerisms, neglected to bow even a little.

The ambulances leave before anyone gets a chance to call a taxi. The sirens wail.

* * *

In the end, Tobio goes to Nakatsuma with Kinoshita, while Yachi and Kiyoko go to Kitaibaraki and Suga, Asahi, Ennoshita, and Tanaka go to Isohara.

Tobio and Kinoshita walk into Nakatsuma and automatically find Ukai, their coach's bleached hair making him stand out. He's in the corner of the waiting room, a clipboard in his lap and a phone at his ear, and as Tobio approaches he also sees a small splint binding the three middle fingers of Ukai's left hand together. Tobio never even realized they were injured back on the bus.

"Coach," Kinoshita says as they stop in front of him.

Ukai waves his right hand at them, then sweeps it toward a couple chairs next to him.

"Hinata's in surgery," he whispers at them, cupping his hand over the phone's speaker. "I— yes, Hinata-san," he says the last part louder, talking to whoever was on the phone. Hinata's mother? Father?

Ukai flips one of his sheets over, revealing a blank side, and scribbles on it.

_Surgery: ~6 hours_

_ Hinata ok otherwise, should be fine_

Tobio hopes that's the worst of it. He thinks of Yamaguchi, but according to Suga and Yachi and even Kiyoko, Yamaguchi has a compound fracture just like Hinata. So surely he'll also be fine?

Tobio can be naïve. That's what his mother says, it's what his father says, and even Oikawa has told him that at least once. Still, he believes everyone is going to be okay. He relaxes in his chair next to Kinoshita, and the two of them play tic-tac-toe on a piece of paper for the next hour. They get another piece of paper and fill that one, too. They get another and play Hangman. They get another and come back from thanking the nurse for all the papers she's given them to find Ukai with his face buried in his hands and his shoulders shaking.

Tobio's stomach, finally calm, churns itself into disarray again.

"Is it Hinata?" he asks. Something bumps into his fingers, and he opens the fists he hadn't even known he'd made. Kinoshita clutches his hand, squeezes hard. Hard, and harder, and then even harder still when Ukai shakes his head.

Tobio believes everyone is going to be okay until Ukai looks up at them, eyes red, and manages to choke out two words.

"It's Yamaguchi."

There are no ambulances coming, no ambulances leaving, nothing but Kinoshita's hand in Tobio's and the aching fear that clogs his throat.

There are no sirens.

* * *

_* i tried doing geographic research for this, guys, i really did. i needed the crash to be somewhere rural so it wouldn't have any witnesses and the paramedics would take awhile to reach them, i needed it to be somewhere that would make sense for them to be driving through from miyagi to tokyo, and eventually i needed three places close to the actual crash and each other for hospitals. this is what i ended up with. i never actually intended to name places, but here we are. i used google maps to narrow stuff down, so if i messed up horribly i sincerely apologize. i'll also admit to having taken creative courtesy in terms of hospital names (by which i mean they're all places in the area i chose, but who knows if they actually have hospitals named after them)_

_also i hope you all enjoyed the new chapter, and as usual, i have a tumblr account, bookdancerfics_

_and please comment! the fic's already written so no worries about inspiration, but it's nice to know what you all think of the story_


	3. Yachi - The Funeral

_yachi time! the chapter title kind of gives away what's happening here, but Japanese funeral rites actually take part over several days, so unlike the first two chapters, there's a few sections in here._

_songs for this chapter are american authors' "deep water" and onerepublic's "let's hurt tonight"_

_thanks for the kudos and comments, and i hope you enjoy the new chapter!_

* * *

Yachi - The Funeral

Hitoka is numb. She stands at the gate of the Yamaguchi family's house, one hand on the wrought iron, with every intention of walking inside. Her gaze, though, is locked on the white paper lantern at the door — a stark reminder of why she's here. Behind her, Kiyoko puts her hand on Hitoka's shoulder and squeezes, but nothing can distract her from the meaning of the lantern. _A death in the family. _Suddenly Hitoka can't breathe.

"Hitoka-chan," Kiyoko says, but her voice is faded, like it's coming from far away. Hitoka turns anyway. How could she not, when Kiyoko calls to her like a lighthouse to Hitoka's lost ship.

Kiyoko cups Hitoka's cheek, and she leans into it.

"Are you alright?" Kiyoko asks. Her voice is gentle, and Hitoka lets it soothe her.

"Yes," she says, the one word a breath that brings her ship closer to the lighthouse.

"Do you want to go in?"

"Yes," Hitoka says again, and she takes the hand Kiyoko offers her and follows her through the gate, up the path, to the front door.

A woman answers it, someone Hitoka doesn't know, but she can see Yamaguchi's parents down the hall, and so she and Kiyoko slip off their shoes and put on slippers provided by the family. The unknown woman directs them into a room up the stairs and to the right, and Hitoka enters to find Tsukishima already there, sitting in the seiza* position on the tatami mat with his head bowed.

Hitoka wants to reach for Kiyoko's hand, yearns for the steadiness it would give her, but she refrains. She doesn't think Tsukishima would appreciate seeing a visible reminder of what he just lost.

"Tsukishima-kun," she says, and her voice trembles.

He looks up at her, his face blank like he arranged it that way. Hitoka honestly wouldn't be surprised if he had. His eyes look red, his cheeks blotchy, and his hands clench at his suit pants.

Yamaguchi's body rests on the futon in front of Tsukishima, covered in a white sheet. Still, Hitoka knows from talking with the other first years that Yamaguchi's family had chosen to dress him in a white kimono instead of a suit, the more popular choice for men. She can't see it, but she also knows that the right side of the kimono is folded over the left, rather than left over right like it would be if he were still… still… she can't finish the sentence, even though the evidence is right in front of her, a white sheet over his face.

Hitoka kneels at Yamaguchi's knees, next to Tsukishima, and Kiyoko kneels next to her.

"Hi, Yamaguchi," she whispers, then covers her mouth before she lets out the sob building in her throat.

"He really liked you, you know," Tsukishima says.

Hitoka starts and feels Kiyoko press a hand to her knee. Tsukishima doesn't look at them, keeping his gaze on Yamaguchi, and his voice is rough. Yamaguchi's hand rests palm up from under the sheet, and Hitoka wonders if Tsukishima had been holding it before they entered.

"I really liked him, too," she says finally, and her eyes burn. "Like him, I mean."

"It's okay to say 'liked,'" Tsukishima says, but he swipes a hand at the cheek Hitoka can't see, and she thinks maybe he's started crying again.

Hitoka shakes her head, and a stray piece of hair floats into her vision. It must have come loose from the black hair band she'd put in her hair.

"I just," she says, and then stops, her own eyes filling with tears. "I'm sorry."

She stands abruptly, Kiyoko's hand slipping from her knee. Without looking at either of them, she makes her escape, hurrying past Daichi and Suga in the doorway and rushing down the stairs.

She had meant to pay her respects to the family's shrine, to sit seiza style in front of yet another thing covered in a white sheet, but Daichi's voice calls after her, surprised and worried and still a little breathless from his broken ribs, and in the end she can't.

In the end, she flees.

* * *

She goes to the wake the next day, of course, wearing her mom's borrowed waterproof makeup to cover what her tears had left behind. In her hands, she clutches her condolence money** in its special black and white decorated envelope.

Kiyoko is waiting outside the temple, dressed in a simple but beautiful black kimono, her own envelope held in her hands. She smiles at Hitoka, and Hitoka gravitates to her.

"Good afternoon," Kiyoko says. She holds her hand out, and Hitoka takes it even as her cheeks warm.

"Good afternoon," she murmurs. "I'm sorry—"

"There's no need to apologize to me, Hitoka-chan," Kiyoko says, squeezing her hand, and Hitoka squeezes back in thanks.

Together, they enter the temple, and the same woman who greeted them at the door the night before nods at them. A basket of black and white decorated envelopes sits at her feet. Hitoka gives a brief bow, short but respectful, before handing over her own. Kiyoko does the same, and the woman bows back before pointing them toward the main area.

There, they both bow to Yamaguchi's parents and then turn to the rest of their team. Tsukishima sits in the very first row, and Hitoka blinks in surprise, because that row is typically for family members. Tsukishima's brother and parents sit right behind him, though, and Hitoka is reminded of just how close the Tsukishima and Yamaguchi families are.

The rest of the team sits across the aisle, with the first and third years in the front row and the second years in the row behind them. Hinata's leg is in a full cast, and his face is pallid — especially against everyone's black suits, dresses, and kimonos — but he still manages a smile when he sees her.

"Hinata-kun," Hitoka says, and she bends down to hug him. He squeezes back, and when they finally pull away from each other he wipes at his eyes with a sniffle. Kageyama, next to Hinata, wraps an arm around his shoulders, and Hitoka's gaze finally goes to the front of the temple.

Yamaguchi's casket sits on an altar, a portrait of him in his Karasuno uniform standing front and center. It's surrounded by flowers, white and blue and beautiful, and Hitoka wishes she knew the names of them.

"Hitoka-chan," Kiyoko murmurs, and Hitoka lets her distract her, following her to seats next to the second years. She ends up between Kiyoko and Tanaka, and on her way there she's able to see that Narita has tape over his nose, that all of Noya's hair is gone, and that Tanaka wears a tight expression that won't disappear.

The differences don't stop there.

Normally, if all of the team were in this close of a proximity, then at least a quarter of them would be yelling, and another quarter would be yelling to be heard over the first ones, and eventually Daichi would be the only one anyone could hear. Instead they're all quiet, soft voices and gentle touches to comfort or reassure, and Daichi says nothing beyond a couple words now and then.

"How are you doing?" someone asks, and Hitoka turns to find Suga twisted around in his chair, looking at her.

"Fine," she says, because what else can she say? The truth?

The truth is that they're all falling apart, slowly and quietly breaking into smaller pieces. They're a molting crow, except some of the feathers will never grow back. Others will take days, weeks, months. Hitoka looks at Tsukishima and tries not to think about how others will take years.

"Good afternoon," someone else says, and it's the priest, so Suga gives her one last searching look that she does her best to smile through before he turns back around.

The priest says a few more opening words, and then the sutra begins. Yamaguchi's mother stands, makes her way to the altar, and picks up granular incense from a bowl sitting in front of the casket. She presses it to her forehead and drops it in a burner, and although Hitoka can't see or hear her, she knows she's uttering a prayer. She finishes with a bow to Yamaguchi's portrait before making way for her husband.

Hinata starts the progression at a second altar, wobbling on his crutches with Kageyama following close behind. Daichi is next, then Suga, and finally Takeda and Ukai and Asahi and all the second years. Hitoka steps into the aisle behind Tanaka.

When she reaches the casket, she presses the incense to her forehead, drops it into the provided burner, and then murmurs a short prayer. She turns, bows to the Yamaguchi family, closes her eyes shut against looming tears, and returns to her seat.

After that, the wake goes by quickly. Yamaguchi's family and Tsukishima finish their procession first, then the friends of the family, and finally the sutra. Hitoka stands with the rest of the team and slips her hand into Kiyoko's. Tsukishima is the only one still sitting, but she imagines he'll stay for the night's vigil — an event reserved for family and close friends.

Hitoka hesitates, wondering if he'll be alright, but Kiyoko squeezes her hand and they walk to the temple door together.

* * *

The next day, Hitoka walks into the funeral with the other first years. Tsukishima is still silent, as is Kageyama, and Hinata can't do much more than hobble on his crutches. They sit in the same seats as they did before, and the ceremony proceeds much like it had the previous day, with all of them going up to the altars to light incense as the priest reads the sutra. At the end, though, the priest talks about Yamaguchi's new kaimyō, a posthumous Buddhist name. If anyone ever mentions Yamaguchi's name, the kaimyō will help keep him from returning. Although the kanji that the priest speaks of are simple, they're still old, and Hitoka knows that the possibility of anyone ever saying them aloud is extremely rare.

And then, finally, everyone is invited to put flowers in Yamaguchi's casket. Like with the incense, his family goes first, then Tsukishima and his family, and then the rest of the guests. Hitoka follows silently behind Tanaka. When she reaches the casket, blue flower in hand, she takes the time to stare at Yamaguchi's face, trying to commit the small details to memory.

His freckles stand out more than usual, his face pale. Someone combed his hair to look somewhat under control, and his eyelashes are dark against his cheeks.

Hitoka places the flower next to the shoulder closest to her, her chest aching and her eyes burning. As if she senses that Hitoka needs it, Kiyoko squeezes her shoulder from behind, and Hitoka briefly touches Kiyoko's hand in thanks.

By the time everyone at the funeral is finished, the flowers around Yamaguchi's head and shoulders are visible even from Hitoka's seat.

When the casket is sealed, ready for its journey to the crematorium, everyone stands. Most of the guests are done mourning formally for the day, as the cremation is traditionally only attended by the family. Still, Hitoka has watched Tsukishima join Yamaguchi's family for all of the other closed mourning rites, and she's not shocked to watch him join Yamaguchi's parents for the ride to the crematorium — even when he's the only one from his own family to do so.

From the quiet muttering of the rest of the team, she gathers that they're also unsurprised, if a bit worried.

"I just want him to be okay," she hears Suga say to Daichi, and Daichi murmurs something that sounds like agreement.

Hitoka thinks she can understand where they're both coming from. As much as she would have liked to be there for Yamaguchi, to fully help him on his way to his final resting place, she also knows that the cremation is a lot more personal than the vigil, wake, or funeral. Yamaguchi's body will be cremated, and then his family — including Tsukishima — will use chopsticks to pick the bones out from the ash and deposit them, one by one, into an urn. Hitoka has been to a couple of cremations before, one for her grandfather and one for her mother's cousin, and although she hadn't been particularly close to her mother's cousin, and had been too young when her grandfather passed to fully understand the grief her parents showed, Hitoka had still felt the solemn air.

Maybe Tsukishima would be up for it in a month's time, or even a week, but Hitoka knows that he's refused to talk to any of Karasuno beyond his few words at the Yamaguchis' house, and the cremation will hurt.

She desperately hopes that feeling so close to Yamaguchi, hurting like that, won't do Tsukishima more harm than good.

There's nothing for her to do other than hope, though. So when Kiyoko offers her hand and suggests going to get food before returning home, Hitoka goes.

* * *

_* seiza: a Japanese sitting position in which a person kneels with the tops of their feet flat on the floor, their knees also on the floor, and their butt on their ankles/bottom of their feet. it's the formal way to sit but can be uncomfortable_

_** condolence money: given in special black and white decorated envelopes, condolence money is given to the family of the deceased in order to help pay for the funeral. how much is given depends on how close to the family the giver is (typically the amount is between 3,000 and 30,000 yen, or roughly $30 to $300). at the end of the wake, all of the guests receive gifts from the family of the deceased that amount to 1/4 or 1/2 the amount of the condolence money they gave_

_*** I researched Japanese funerals, and tried to be as respectful as I could in terms of custom. If you noticed something I missed, please let me know and I'll do my best to fix it._

_i hope you all enjoyed the chapter! as a reminder my tumblr account is bookdancerfics, so feel free to stop by_

_and, finally, please comment! i'd love to know what you all thought_


	4. Hinata - The Mountain

_thanks again to everyone who left kudos, bookmarked, and/or commented!_

_the songs for this chapter are simple plan's "gone too soon" and the greatest showman's "rewrite the stars"_

_i hope you all enjoy the new chapter!_

* * *

Hinata - The Mountain

The first week after Shouyou wakes up from surgery passes in a blur. Maybe if he pays attention, then things will start making sense, start connecting in his mind, but he's not entirely sure if that's what he wants. If he pays attention, then the pain will spread beyond his leg. If he pays attention, then his chest will throb with the ache of it all. If he pays attention, then Yamaguchi will be truly gone.

It's much easier to paste a smile on his face when his parents ask if he's okay, to say he's focusing on strengthening his leg so he can make it back to the team in time for next year's summer nationals. They had to forfeit their spot in the winter nationals, and he'll be on the bench for the spring qualifiers because of his leg, and it's easier to be bitter about that than think of the one person who will never play volleyball again.

He goes back to school with most of the team two days after the funeral.

They're all there early, Suga and Asahi and Ennoshita carrying full plastic bags.

"It's going to be small," Suga warns them, even as he ropes Narita into helping him straighten one of the tiniest tables Shouyou's ever seen. "But it's ours. Yamaguchi's."

When they're done, a small shrine sits outside of the front office. It's covered in candles, pictures, and everything else necessary for a shrine to the dead. Yachi puts the finishing touches on with flowers that Shouyou recognizes from the funeral, fitting them in between the pictures.

"They're blue delphinium," she says.

They all step back then, till Daichi is the only one still next to the shrine, holding a lighter. He glances at them, checking for something Shouyou doesn't know, but he must find it, because he turns back to the shrine and lights the incense.

* * *

For the first time in ages, Shouyou actually tries to concentrate in class. Concentrating on that means he can't think about the shrine down the hall, or on what it means.

When he leaves his classroom at the end of the day, though, the incense at the shrine is no longer lit, and anger surges through his chest, up his throat, and spills from his mouth.

"Do you have a lighter?" he asks the front office, making an appeal not to one person but the general vicinity. One of them, a woman he's had as a substitute teacher before, looks up with the clear purpose of shushing him, but instead her eyes widen.

"Hinata-kun," she says.

"Sensei," he says in return. "Do you have a lighter?"

She shakes her head. "Whatever do you need a lighter for?"

"The incense on Yamaguchi-kun's shrine isn't lit anymore."

Even as he says it, though, he can see the clear answer in her face. She probably even knew what he wanted before he said it.

"I'm sorry, Hinata-kun," the teacher says, and now he can see sympathy in her eyes and he hates it. He doesn't want her sympathy. He wants the incense lit. "We had to put it out; it's a fire hazard. It's a miracle it didn't set off the fire alarms."

"But —" he protests, and suddenly he's uncomfortable. His crutches dig into his armpits, and his stomach feels hollow even though he just ate a couple hours ago, and his nose stings like it does before he cries. Shouyou doesn't _want _to cry. Not again, anyway — he's done enough crying, anyone would think he should be cried out by now, and yet here the teacher is, looking at him with an expression that makes it clear she wouldn't be surprised if he _did _burst into tears.

"Your mom is picking you up, right?" the teacher says in his silence. "Do you want me to wait at the curb with you?"

Shouyou shakes his head. There are tears in the corner of his eyes, now, and he doesn't look up in the hope that they'll stay put.

"No," he says instead, mumbling to the floor. Suddenly he's just very, very exhausted, and the incense, which was the most important thing in the world to him mere minutes ago, no longer matters in the face of escaping the office without losing control of his tears.

"Okay," the teacher says, and she even _sounds _sympathetic. "Have a good afternoon, Hinata-kun."

Shouyou only shrugs in response as he leaves.

His mom is already at the school's entrance when he gets outside, standing next to the family minivan with her phone in hand and a frown on her face. As soon as he comes into view, she looks up with a bright smile.

"Shou-chan!" she says, opening the passenger door. She's never let him ride up front before this morning, but Shouyou gets in silently anyway, letting her put his crutches in the backseat. "How was school?"

"It was fine," he says, and turns to look out the window. He wipes at his eyes when the car starts moving, sure that she's looking at the road and not him.

"Want to talk about anything in particular?"

Shouyou rests his head on the seatbelt strap, letting it form a badly cushioned pillow. "Not really… I'm just tired."

"Oh," his mom says. She still sounds cheerful, but only just. Shouyou can hear the hitch in her voice as she falters. "Well, just nap then. I'm sure you'll feel better when you wake up."

"Yeah," he says, quiet, but he keeps his eyes open as they go through the town, and then again as they travel up the mountain. It's mid-winter, so most of the trees are bare, and snow covers the ground near the top. The roads have all been cleared, but Shouyou knows from experience how slippery they still are. It's good that he doesn't have to worry about riding his bike over them for the rest of the winter. It's good that he doesn't have to text Suga to let the vice-captain know he's gotten home safe. It's good that his parents don't have to wait for him to call and tell them he made it to school.

The tears fall down his cheeks, quiet, quiet, quiet, and Shouyou does his best to think about how good it is that he doesn't have to worry about the icy mountain, at least for one winter. As the car starts down the other side, he finally closes his eyes. Maybe, when he opens them, the pain in his chest will have gone.

* * *

Shouyou isn't sure what it is, but everyone has been making a point of texting everyone else. Or, at least, they've been making a point of doing it more than they used to.

Kenma texts him good morning, asks how he's doing in the afternoon, and also texts him good night, all amongst their usual conversations and Shouyou's emoticons.

Suga says he's "just checking in" twice a day, right at the end of volleyball practice. Shouyou agonizes over what to say, whether to complain about how his parents aren't letting him at least watch the others at practice, or how he's started telling time based on how his leg aches for a solid hour before he can take more painkillers, or how Kageyama can barely let him out of his sight. Shouyou types, and deletes, and types, and deletes, and without fail sends back that he's "fine!" and "just missing everyone," with a more extravagant emoticon than usual pasted on the end. He agonizes over those, too.

Even Bokuto, between his "hey hey hey"s and "oya oya"s and "are you sure you can't transfer to Fukurodani"s, finds ways to ask if Shouyou is alright. Shouyou sends back a mix of emojis, emoticons, and exclamation points, and tries not to let his stomach bother him when Bokuto says that Akaashi, Kuroo and Lev, and all the other guys from Fukurodani and Nekoma are hoping for Karasuno to recover quickly.

Shouyou doesn't know how to tell them that he doesn't think Karasuno will ever recover. That he wakes up in the middle of the night to sharp pains in his leg because his meds wore off. That Kageyama no longer races him anywhere, and instead hovers insistently over one shoulder _just in case_, and Shouyou doesn't even have to ask what he means by that. That Daichi still talks as little as possible, because their captain taught himself to never show weakness to his team, and he has to pause between long sentences just to breathe. That Tanaka's way of telling Shouyou not to worry about missing practice was to say that "half the team only watches on the benches anyway," but he misses just being in their gym.

That although Shouyou wakes up in pain, and Kageyama worries, and Daichi struggles to take a breath, and _half their team _hasn't been cleared to toss a ball around, Yamaguchi can't even do any of that. Will never do any of that. Never had a chance to.

That even when everyone else can't stop texting, Tsukishima never says a word.

"It's not for lack of trying," Shouyou tells Kageyama their third day back. Kageyama and Yachi have taken to pulling desks up to Shouyou's for lunch, so he doesn't have to move. Yachi pauses even as she unpacks her bento, her hands stalling above her desk, and Shouyou wishes he could tell her not to worry. In the end, he decides it doesn't matter, because he'd probably just end up lying anyway.

"What do you mean?" Kageyama asks, and tries to reach for Shouyou's disposable chopsticks for the third time in as many minutes.

"Crappy Yama," Shouyou scolds, and breaks his chopsticks apart right in Kageyama's face. It's supposed to make a point. They break uneven instead, and Shouyou scowls as he picks a splinter off. "I _mean_, Suga-san told me to keep trying to text Tsukishima-kun, so I've sent him at least three texts a day. Just to check in. But he refuses to answer — see?"

He pushes his phone across the desks to Kageyama and simultaneously shoves a whole inarizushi* in his mouth. Yachi wrinkles her nose at him, probably involuntarily as she immediately looks mortified, and he does his best to grin at her around all the rice. Judging by how her mortification turns to horror, he didn't entirely succeed. He also can't bring himself to care, and instead just picks up the next inarizushi to eat even as he chews the first one.

"You're the crappy one," Kageyama says, scrolling through Shouyou's conversation with Tsukishima. Shouyou makes a face at him, but he continues frustratingly calmly. "This isn't just three texts a day, it's a bombardment."

Shouyou finally swallows, but puts down his food and chopsticks in favor of talking. "So?"

Kageyama rolls his eyes, then starts talking in a high pitched voice. "Tsukishima, please answer. Suga says you need someone to talk to. Suga thinks it will help. Tsukishima stop ignoring me. Tsuki—"

"Alright!" Shouyou says. He shoves his desk into Kageyama's, and the setter grunts as the collision connects with his stomach. Shouyou just scowls. "Serves you right. I'm trying to be _helpful_, Tobio!"

"Don't call me that!" Kageyama says, but although his hands go to his desk as if to shove back, he doesn't. Shouyou hates that Kageyama looked at his leg before stopping.

"So be helpful for once!" Shouyou cries back. His nose burns, and he sniffs loudly in an attempt to hold back the tears he knows are coming. "I want to _help_ him, Kageyama, not tease him." He sniffs again. "He may be a Stingyshima, but he's still our teammate."

Kageyama looks at Shouyou's leg again, then at the crutches propped against Shouyou's desk, and then finally at Shouyou himself.

"Okay," Kageyama says.

"Okay," Shouyou says back, and shoves his second inarizushi into his mouth. "Le's 'et star'ed."

* * *

_* inarizushi: basically tofu pouches filled with rice, they're a lot tastier than their looks suggest. they're also larger than your typical sushi; i don't doubt hinata's ability to fit a whole one in his mouth, but i do doubt his ability to do so with manners (luckily, he doesn't need them here)_

_quick reminder that my tumblr is bookdancerfics, so feel free to stop by!_

_and please leave comments, they make my day!_


	5. Yamaguchi - The Gym

_ok, it's time for yamaguchi the yūrei! so i did a *lot* of research for this particular type of Japanese spirit, and i did my best to write the yūrei respectfully for Japan's culture, but if you notice that i got anything wrong, please let me know and i'll do my best to fix it_

_the songs for this chapter are one direction's "infinity" and p!nk's "i am here"_

_thanks to everyone who reviewed, followed, and/or favorited! i'm so glad that you all enjoyed, and i hope that you all like the final chapter as well_

_also just a quick warning that there's something kind of like a panic attack in the first section_

* * *

Yamaguchi - The Gym

Tadashi wakes up in Karasuno's volleyball gym. He rubs his eyes, confused, because the last thing he remembers is being on the bus to Nationals, and there's no way he just up and forgot competing.

There's no way he up and forgot everything in between that, too, because he and Tsukki had had plans—had wanted to walk around Tokyo together and hold hands without Kageyama or Hinata snickering at them, had wanted to go to the top of Tokyo Tower and watch the sun set. They'd wanted to win.

There's no way Tadashi just up and forgot winning. Or even losing. Tadashi never wanted to lose a game at Nationals, but he'll take remembering that over remembering nothing. Teams who go to Nationals are shaped differently, after all. People say the experience changes them.

Still, Tadashi gets up and finds himself exactly in the middle of the gym, wearing his favorite blue T-shirt and his Karasuno sweatpants. He looks around, but the only light coming inside is natural; the sun brightens the first several feet inside the windows and leaves the rest of the area dim. None of the nets are up, none of the equipment is out, and the door is closed.

The gym looks like it does when it's locked, waiting for them to come practice.

On a whim, Tadashi checks the clock; it's four in the afternoon. Unless they have a day off, they should have started practice by now, but Tadashi can hear voices filtering in from outside, so there are at least some people still at the school.

"Tsukki?" he calls. "Dai-san? Suga-san? Where are you?"

No one answers.

Tadashi frowns, but heads for the front door all the same.

He tests the handle, and —

He tests the handle again, frowning, because he could have sworn —

He tries to test the handle a third time, horror lurching in his chest, but his hand goes through it just like had the first two times.

"Tsukki?!" he says again, because his boyfriend has to be here, there's something wrong with his hand, something — he kicks at the door and his toes goes through it — something wrong with _him_, and he needs his boyfriend, he needs Tsukki, he needs Kei, he —

Tadashi's thoughts come to an abrupt halt. Not because he wants them to, or because he's trying to calm his breathing down or anything, but because he isn't having trouble breathing. He had been fully prepared to spiral right into a panic attack, and instead he isn't. Not that he's complaining, but it's weird.

He looks down at his chest and takes an experimental breath, but his chest doesn't move.

"Um," he says, and tries again — same result. "What?"

He looks at the door, then at himself, and he wonders if it's just his imagination, or if he looks just a little faded around the edges.

He takes two big steps forward, closing his eyes as he reaches the door, and then opening them to find himself outside the gym.

"What —," he says, and it's only then that he realizes that Daichi and Suga are right there_._

The two third years sit on the top steps to the gym, with Asahi two steps below them and Ennoshita and Kinoshita sitting cross-legged on the concrete walkway. If Tadashi tilts his head, they look kind of like a misshapen semi-circle.

"Suga-san," he says, and falls to his knees next to his vice-captain. "You gotta help me, something's wrong, I — Suga-san? Are you listening?"

He waves a hand in front of Suga's face, but the older boy doesn't even seem to register him. And, when Tadashi looks, none of the others seem to, either.

"— need to at least have a team meeting," Daichi is saying.

Tadashi blinks and waves a hand in front of Daichi's face, only to get no response.

"But you're still hurt," Asahi says. Tadashi looks at Daichi in surprise.

"Woah, wait, what?" he asks. "Since when?"

"I'm not saying we all need to practice," Daichi says, talking over Tadashi. "Just a meeting. And I'm not the only one hurt."

"What?" Tadashi says. "Who else is hurt? Why don't I remember any of this? Why won't you guys look at me?"

Even while Tadashi talks, though, the others exchange some kind of look that he can't read.

"We know," Ennoshita says eventually. "It's just, besides Hinata and… you know… you were hurt the worst. We just want to make sure you're up for it."

"What about Hinata?" Tadashi asks. There's a horrible, useless feeling curling in his gut. "What do you mean, 'you know'? I _don't_."

This time, they all exchange the same look.

"Has anyone," Suga hesitates. "Has anyone seen Tsukishima-kun? Or talked to him? I mean, since…"

Suga trails off, but Tadashi's whole chest is strangling itself and even if he didn't somehow not need to breathe right now, he straight up just wouldn't be.

"What about Kei?" he says, but again, none of them answer.

"He just lets all my calls go to voicemail," Ennoshita says. "And who knows if he's even opened my texts. I'd rather just be left on read and at least know he's seen them, but…"

Tadashi stares at them all, and this time as they talk he looks even closer. Daichi's doing his best to sit up straight, and Suga's so close to Daichi they could fall into each other. Asahi's hair hangs loose, but it's also obviously tangled, like he's taken to running his fingers through it at every opportunity.

As if he's trying to prove Tadashi right, Asahi shakes his head and then shoves a hand through his hair.

Kinnoshita has deep, bruising bags under his eyes, and while Ennoshita looks the most normal, Tadashi can see how he keeps turning to the side Kinoshita's not on, like he's expecting someone else to be there. Tadashi would bet he keeps looking for Narita, but then, he doesn't know why Narita's _not _there.

"—so Friday after school in the club room," Suga is saying, and Tadashi reaches for his sleeve.

His hand just goes through it, though, and when he reaches for Daichi's instead, the same thing happens.

"Can someone please," Tadashi begs, "please, _please _just _tell me what's happening!_"

He's standing when he finishes, his hands clenched into fists and his eyes squeezed shut, and he feels so angry that he expects something to have happened. What, he doesn't know, but he kind of hopes that his teammates will at least be looking at him.

When he opens his eyes, though, they're all just standing up as if nothing happened. As if they aren't leaving him.

Tadashi slumps onto the stairs, watches them as they trudge away, and then buries his head into his hands and cries.

As much as he sobs, though, no tears come.

* * *

Tadashi spends the next few days wandering Karasuno. He can't leave, even though he wants to, because every time he approaches the exit to the grounds he finds himself unable to take another step forward, like there's an invisible wall between him and the rest of the Miyagi prefecture.

Instead, he spends his time going from classroom to classroom during school hours. The third years attend every class, but Daichi makes frequent trips to the nurse's office, and Asahi excuses himself every now and then to go to the bathroom. He comes back with red rimmed eyes and a pink nose, and Tadashi doesn't think he's going to the bathroom just to use the toilet.

The second years also attend each class, religiously so, and that's how Tadashi knows something is wrong. Before, Tanaka and Noya would always get in trouble for skipping class or not doing homework, but now Tanaka turns in every paper and Noya pays as much attention as his apparent concussion allows him.

Tadashi doesn't know how Noya got his concussion. He doesn't know how Narita broke his nose. He doesn't even know what Daichi's injury is, and he doesn't know why Hinata's leg is in a cast, or why some of his teammates are injured and others aren't.

He doesn't know why Yachi doesn't appear hurt, but she still makes more trips to the bathroom with her tissues than Asahi does.

He doesn't know why Kei hasn't shown up to class even once, or why Kageyama and Hinata feel the need to shout about how he's not even acknowledging their texts. Why Kei feels the need to leave them both on read for days, going on weeks, instead of the customary hours that Tadashi knows he likes to indulge in just to mess with them.

He does, though, think he knows why he can't interact with his team, why he breathes but his chest doesn't move, why he can go through objects and his edges look a little blurry.

He's had a theory since the day he first woke up, but at the same time, he doesn't know if he wants it confirmed or not.

He finds the shrine Thursday morning.

It's down by the front office, where Tadashi doesn't normally go, but he's wandered around the rest of the school by now and he's in the mood for a change of scenery.

The shrine is just a small thing, not even a typical Butsudan altar or cabinet,* but a grouping of candles, pictures, flowers, and an incense burner on a short table outside the school's front office. The incense burner is practically brand new, lit maybe once, and the main picture is of the Buddha while the other pictures all show him.

Him—the only one in the frame, but with his head bent and a grin on his face, and it's obvious that he was snickering at something Kei said. Him in the middle of a jump float serve. Him in his volleyball uniform, mid-cheer. Him receiving his medal after Karasuno beat Shiratorizawa.

There's a lump in his throat, and Tadashi swallows it before sinking to the floor.

Part of him had been hoping that his body was in a hospital somewhere, severely injured but still hanging on, just waiting for him to finish whatever spiritual journey he needed to in order to wake up again, like the protagonist in any number of Western movies did.

But he's not; this is proof of that.

He's really dead.

* * *

The next day is Friday, and Kei finally shows up to class after lunch, walking in with his hair slightly longer than normal, his shoulders hunched, and his eyes on the floor. It's only when he reaches his desk, which Tadashi has taken to sitting in, that Tadashi spots a new scar going through his left eyebrow.

Tadashi silently slips into his old seat, letting Kei take his back. He looks down at his hands and twists them in his lap. It's weird to be sitting in his seat again, because although he's sat there all year, it had been comforting to be in Kei's.

Suddenly, though, something cold and uncomfortable passes through him, and Tadashi jumps from his seat to find Kei sitting there.

"Tsukishima-kun," their teacher starts, but then Kei looks at her, and she obviously changes her mind on whatever she'd been about to say. "Welcome back."

Kei nods stiffly; Tadashi slowly sinks back into Kei's old seat.

* * *

Tadashi follows Kei to the club room after the last class ends.

Hinata, Kageyama, and Yachi all join them, with Hinata blabbering on about Tsukki not answering any of his texts, and Yachi stammering something out about missing him, and Kageyama drinking from a tiny milk carton with his expression surprisingly solemn.

When they reach the steps to the club room, they all slow simultaneously. None of them help Hinata as he maneuvers his crutches up the stairs, although Yachi makes an aborted motion before drawing back when she sees his face, and Kageyama shadows him till he's steady on the second floor. Even Kei hovers right below Hinata, taking each step with him.

They're the last ones to enter, the second and third years all standing or sitting around in a circle already.

Suga and Daichi's eyes widen when Kei enters, and Tadashi bets that his boyfriend hadn't told anyone he was coming back to school.

"Tsukishima-kun!" Suga says. A brief smile lights up his face. "Welcome back!"

Kei shrugs in greeting, but still takes a seat right between Tanaka, who ends the line of second years, and Asahi, who bookends the third years. The other first years fill in the gaps, Hinata tucking himself into Tanaka's side with Kageyama next to him, while Yachi is dwarfed by Kei on one side and Asahi on the other. Tadashi sits behind and between Yachi and Kei, where he can see everyone's faces.

Daichi clears his throat.

"I specifically asked for this meeting to be students only," he says. "And I want you all to know that unless Suga or I think something should be said to them, nothing in this room will be repeated to Takeda-sensei or Coach Ukai. We want this to be our space."

All of the team nods, even Tadashi, although he doesn't know how he would ever communicate anything.

"So," Suga says. "Does anyone have any immediate questions or concerns? How is everyone doing?"

As one, most of the team shrugs, exchanging awkward looks.

"I think we're healing," Ennoshita says. "Physically, anyway. Uh — I'm not all too sure about mentally, but… physically…"

No one says anything, and when Tadashi looks around, he can see everyone either looking at another, specific person, or staring at the ground. Suddenly all of the differences — the bandages and stitches, the bags under their eyes, the way they all sit hunched over — they all stand out. Tanaka's fingers tighten around Hinata's shoulder, and Tadashi is starkly reminded that he still has no idea what actually happened, or how badly everyone else was hurt.

"Okay," Suga says eventually. Tadashi can practically see how their vice-captain's gaze locks onto Kei. "Tsukishima-kun… you just came back to school today. How are you doing?"

"Fine," Kei says, and Tadashi looks at him worriedly.

Suga stares at him, but doesn't press. "Okay. Um… Takeda-sensei did recommend that we all visit the counselors at least once or twice, if we haven't already. I already went, and I actually found it helpful, so—"

"So that's the plan?" Kei says, blatantly interrupting. His voice is hard all of a sudden, his knuckles white from where his hands have curled into fists. Tadashi knows that if he were to look, Kei's jaw would be firmly set.

There's silence before Ennoshita speaks up. "What?"

"Yamaguchi's dead," Kei says, and Tadashi flinches. "Or have you all forgotten? You've all talked about teammates this, and teammates that, all fucking year, and now he's gone and all you can do is talk around him? Have any of you even said his name since the funeral?"

"Tsukishima-kun," Suga tries, but Kei is furious and they all know it.

"You put up a little shrine and decided that was enough, now it's time to focus on yourselves? Oh, poor Suga-san, whose boyfriend got injured trying to protect him. Well guess what? My boyfriend's _dead_. And I didn't even get a _chance_ to protect him." Kei spits the last sentences out, and Tadashi, horrified, reaches for him before he remembers he can't actually make contact.

Kei is already getting to his feet, though, one of his hands swiping at his face.

"I'll be outside; come get me when you're all ready to actually remember him instead of pretend he never existed."

"Tsukishima-kun!" Suga says, and Tadashi watches, stricken, as the third year follows Kei from the room.

"I should—" Daichi says, starting to stand, but Kiyoko catches his arm and shakes her head. Tadashi, already on his feet, pauses.

"Let Sugawara-kun handle it," Kiyoko says. "I'm sure Tsukishima-kun doesn't want to be overwhelmed right now."

Daichi hesitates, but then sits, one of his hands reaching for his ribs.

"Right," he allows.

Tadashi stares at the door, thinking of how easy it would be to follow Suga and Kei. But then he thinks of how any conversation they have should be private, though neither of them would know he's there. How, although he wants to make sure Kei is okay, respecting both of their privacy is more important than anything else.

He takes one last look at the door before sitting back down, trusting that Suga will take care of Kei.

The rest of the meeting passes slowly, and awkwardly, all of them hesitant to talk when neither Suga nor Kei have returned yet. Not that they weren't awkward before, Tadashi thinks.

It's been a good thirty minutes when Suga walks back in. He's not smiling, but he doesn't look angry or upset, either, so Tadashi counts it as a win.

"Tsukishima-kun said he'll apologize tomorrow," Suga says when they all look at him. "But for now, he _is _sorry, he's just upset."

"As long as he does apologize," Daichi says, and Suga nods.

"Did he leave already?" Hinata asks, voicing the question that Tadashi had been wondering, and Suga nods again.

"Oh," Hinata says.

Tadashi doesn't hear the rest. Instead, he jumps to his feet and sprints out of the club room, automatically spotting Kei's blonde head below the balcony. It barely takes any effort to catch up, because Kei is walking slowly. His hands are shoved in his pockets, and he's slouching, his backpack hanging off just one shoulder. Every now and then, he scrubs a hand across his cheeks.

Whatever he and Suga talked about obviously got to him, but if it got him to apologize, then Tadashi guesses that it must have been in a good way.

He follows Kei to the edge of Karasuno's grounds, then stops. Kei stops, too, almost like he senses that Tadashi is there and can't go any further. Tadashi meets his eyes when he looks back. Kei doesn't react, not seeing him, and instead just turns around again and continues on.

Tadashi watches him until he disappears from view, then settles at the front of the school's entrance. When Kei returns in the morning for Saturday practice, Tadashi will be waiting.

* * *

_* Butsudan, or Butudan, is a Japanese shrine typically placed in homes or temples in order to pay respect to dead family members. if you look up pictures, they're usually wooden or ornate cabinets_

_and thank you so much to everyone who got this far! i'm so glad you all (hopefully) enjoyed reading this as much as i enjoyed writing it. it started as a little "hey what if i wrote a prologue about what happened to yamaguchi" and then ended up as, well, this_

_on that note, this *is* only a prologue! although it can very much be read as a stand alone story, i have another fic in the works that will pick up where this one left off, from the point of view of the incoming first years_

_and, finally, just a reminder that my tumblr is _bookdancerfics_, so feel free to stop by!_

_and (finally) finally, please review! it always makes my day to see a new review that lets me know what you all thought of my fic_


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